August 6, 2024 โข 32 mins
Ever wondered how your cultural background shapes your vacation habits? Join us as we unpack the profound effects of regional and professional environments on the way we take time off. From the importance of vacations for wellness to the intricacies of planning around family and pets, youโll gain insights into how various factors influence your break from the grind. We also delve into the distinction between loving your vocation and being tied to a demanding job and how that impacts your need for a breather. Plus, we invite you to share your own vacation stories and habits.
How do Australia and the U.S. differ in their attitudes towards vacations? We juxtapose the laid-back, generous vacation policies of Australia with the hustle culture of the United States, where workplace visibility often trumps personal time off. Learn about the cultural norms and economic factors driving these differences, and discover how Mediterranean regions treat time off as a sacred right compared to Asiaโs strategic use of limited vacation days. From the art of crafting autoresponder emails to balancing professional performance with personal well-being, we'll broaden your understanding of global vacation perspectives and work-life balance.
๐๐ฌ๐ค ๐พ๐๐๐ฅ๐จ โ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ฎ ๐พ๐ช๐ก๐ฉ๐ช๐ง๐๐จ is the worldโs #1 show on the business of culture and the culture of business. Christian Hรถferle and Brett Parry ponder culture in short bursts and deep dives, featuring your questions and comments related to culture, business, and personal growth.
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more great content: https://www.youtube.com/@TwoChapsManyCultures
Visit https://theculturemastery.com/ for more information about the skills for working in a global context.
The music on this episode is provided courtesy of Sepalot.
โDuum Diipโ - Artist: Sepalot - Label: Eskapaden - Copyright control
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
So let's take it.
What about Jill?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Maybe it doesn't make Jill a dull boy.
It makes Jill a dull girl me.
So why don't we take a trip?
All right, should we go andrelax a little?
Maybe we should, and yet a lotof us don't feel like we're
getting enough time off, thatwe're really not kicking it back
(00:30):
enough, and it may havesomething to do with where we
actually work.
That may very much influencehow we take time off.
Let's take a closer look.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Welcome to 2Chap.
Many Cultures.
In an increasingly globallyconnected world, it is vital to
possess the essential skills ofcultural intelligence.
Listen along as we present thetopics, tips and strategies you
can use to develop the power ofcultural understanding in your
personal and professional life.
(01:02):
Here are your hosts Christian,huffala and Brett.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Parry, hello again and welcome back to Two Chaps,
many Cultures, the only show onthe planet where too much
culture is barely enough.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And where too much vacation is barely enough, if
you ask me.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
That's another point too.
Yes, welcome to the show wherewe talk about the business of
culture and the culture ofbusiness.
And today we are talking aboutvacations, where the origins of
where you live or where you workmight have something to do with
the amount of vacation you takeor don't take in this
particular case.
(01:42):
But before we get started, Iwill ask you that please
subscribe, hit that bell andlisten along, make sure that you
get informed on the nextepisode and be a part of the
conversation.
So, my friend, taking a goodbreak slightly.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I have taken a break.
It was good.
It was not great.
It was a good break.
Could have been a better breakand I'm not complaining.
It was a break.
And we're curious.
As you ring the bell, as yousubscribe to this channel and
stay part of the conversation,share with us in the comments to
this episode how often do yougo on vacation?
(02:23):
Do you do it once a year, twicea year, once a decade?
Do you take long breaks?
Do you take short breaks?
Do you take them as a solotraveler with, maybe a life
partner?
If you have young ones in thefamily, do you take them along
or do they go on separate trips?
(02:44):
What do you do with your pets,if you have pets?
All of these considerationsthat go into planning a vacation
or a trip doesn't necessarilyhave to be a vacation.
It could be time off spent withloved ones or friends at home
or near your home.
The concept that we're talkingabout is in the US.
(03:06):
They call it PTO personal timeoff.
Do you take time off and do youdo it enough?
Do you do enough, brett?
I do a lot.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, I guess it gets around.
We talk about vacation, but Iwant to always bring in the
conversation about vocation.
You know, do you have a career,do you have a vocation, do you
have something that you love?
I mean, I just think that doingthe work we do every day is a
work day for me, is a work dayfor me Not only if I'm talking
(03:46):
to clients directly, but couldbe that I'm just developing
information for clients.
In that sense, so we love thiswork.
So we understand not everybodyis like that and if you've got a
job which especially, maybeeven physical right, if you have
a physical job that putsdemands physically on your body
but also something that reallytaxes your brain, I would like
(04:09):
to think that what we do taxesour brain a little bit,
especially me.
But you know a lot of thinkingand a lot of work we need to
take a break from from variouspoints of view the point of view
of the physical well-being, thepsychological well-being and
something that you certainlytalk about.
There might be some of thatspiritual side of things, more
(04:31):
of the connectedness that weneed to feel with the people we
actually go to work and spendtime away from.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Well, while I understand that not everybody on
this planet has gainfulemployment that is fulfilling in
a spiritual way, that isactually a passion project that
they have created a meaning forthemselves around it, I do
recognize a lot of people have ajob because it pays the bills.
(04:58):
I don't know, was it KarlLagerfeld, the late German
fashion designer, who saidthings that you hate doing,
that's the job.
Things that you love doing,that is work in the sense of
meaningful work.
And there's other quotes aroundthat surrounding, like if you
love what you do, you'll neverwork a day in your life.
(05:21):
Well, I don't know how much ofthat is true.
Work a day in your life?
Well, I don't know how much ofthat is true.
I love what I do and still Ifeel once in a while that is in
fact, work and that it isdraining or exhausting to a
certain degree.
And I think, in physics,anything where we put
performance into, where we powerinto it needs recuperation,
(05:44):
energy needs to be restored.
There is, it's not.
You don't have an unlimitedamount.
That's why we have vacation,right?
that's why we have personal timeoff now we've come across some
statistics and, as we'rerecording this, of course this
is a timeless episode.
You can watch this any time ofthe year.
As we're recording this, it'sthe holiday season in the
(06:10):
northern part of our globe andthere's news articles about the
statistics being published abouthow much time do people
actually take off, and there wasone particular company who is
in the travel industry who hascreated something of a what they
call a vacation deprivationindex or similar.
(06:33):
I'm not quite sure about thelanguage, but it sounded like if
you're not taking enough, youfeel deprived of your vacation,
right, you're stripped from theprivilege of recuperation, and
in some countries, that feelingmight be stronger than in others
, because in some countries,people are not used to taking a
(06:56):
lot of time off, where in othereconomies, in other countries,
time off is baked into the workyear and is much more of a
habitual thing rather than achoice.
What is it like in your nativecountry?
How do people down under takevacations, and are they serious
(07:17):
about it, or is it more of a?
Well, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I think the hint can be found in the way that when
you're working with folks fromdifferent cultures, that they
show how much they want to beseen right, how much the
importance of visibility InAustralia.
I guess it may have changedmore recently, but I always
remember it not being as harddriving to be visible in the
(07:45):
workplace.
Yes, you wanted to be seen asvaluable, but not the need to be
seen as dispensable orindispensable, right?
So you don't want to kind ofput out the feeling that if I
don't go to work then somehowpeople are going to forget what
I do and diminish my value.
(08:07):
That is certainly, I hope, inthe business world in Australia
still prevalent and I think alot of people I work with that
go to Australia do.
When they arrive they see andagain it gets back to perception
they may come from a culturewhere visibility and appearance
and being seen all the time isimportant, like maybe perhaps
(08:30):
here in the US, and thereforethere's a reticence to take time
off because that makes you kindof disappear and out of sight,
out of mind comes into play,whereas in Australia, where we
enjoy the outdoors, we have thebenefit of enjoying the outdoors
to a greater degree and wereally like our time with our
(08:53):
families and things like thatand our workplace, the social
contract with the society also,because healthcare isn't really
tied to your job as much.
Those kind of support networksare not tied to the job.
Maybe there's a little bit of asubconscious feeling that I'm
(09:13):
going to really make sure that Itake my vacation and there's
also a lot more vacation allowedin australia.
So, very quickly after beingemployed, and and on and on on
an ongoing basis, in a veryshort period of time you accrue
additional leave.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
How many work days or how many vacation days do you
get in Australia per year?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Well, I remember you know very quickly you got a full
month's paid vacation.
It was something that was justbaked in, like you said.
That's the thing that's bakedinto it.
And then pretty soon you know alot of jobs historically had
this after 10 years you got longservice leave which would tack
on another whole month at a time.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And then more, and it was a reward for the commitment
and the loyalty to the companythat they said let's throw you
some more paid vacation and offyou go right.
And there wasn't thatimportance that you had to be
there.
There seemed to be more of asupport network.
Of course, it was differentwhen I came to the US as a
business person.
(10:14):
I found people where even youcould offer them all of that
vacation but there was no waythey were going to take it for
getting very few paid vacationdays or days off.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And there's other ways to take time off in the US
workplace maybe unpaid, orsometimes people take what's
called sick days in order torecharge their batteries.
But not all of these days arefully paid.
And, as you mentioned earlier,in US US culture, it is a little
(10:52):
bit more important for a lot ofpeople at the workplace to be
seen, to be recognized, not inthe sense of being seen as a
star contributor or asindispensable, but being
recognized as present and anactive contributor to the team.
And if you're not there, thenpeople might think hey, Jim or
(11:16):
Jack or Jill are not here todayand work is still getting done.
Do we really need Jack on thepayroll?
What can we do without Jack?
Because he was gone for threedays.
So that is an insidious fear.
To be be honest, that is veryoften that plays into those
decisions.
I think another factor might beoverall economics of travel.
(11:39):
Right.
In some markets your averagepay may not allow you to travel
the world as much, because thecurrency that you're paid in may
not make it easy for you to goto destinations that are very
sought after.
So that might play into it.
(12:01):
And for me as a European, Ialways found that what makes it
really hard for working familiesin the United States is how the
school system is structuredaround the calendar year,
Whereas in Europe a lot ofcountries the school year is
broken up into multiple pieces,with short vacation breaks, like
(12:24):
a week or maybe two weeks, forthe children or students, and
then there's longer breaks inthe summer.
There's even a break in thewinter around certain holidays,
and in the US the bulk of thevacation time for students is
the 10 to 12 weeks in the summer.
So if that happens for moststates in the United States at
(12:46):
around the same time of year,you can't just send 100 million
working Americans on vacation atthe same time.
That simply doesn't work.
So all of these are social andeconomic and also cultural
factors that play into thatdecision making, right yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
that's a good reminder too, because the school
year in Australia is muchlonger.
The main summer break reallyonly lasts about six weeks.
It's not a long break incomparison, but there is more
opportunity during the year, soduring even the winter months
there's opportunities.
So employers can share, oremployees can share, the load of
(13:31):
taking vacations and thingslike that, yeah for sure.
So I I just think as a, as amanager, um, going to a new
culture, if you are, one of thethings you really have to kind
of do research in is what is theattitude around vacations?
And of course, as you mentioned, in some European countries
taking time off is sacrosanct.
(13:52):
There is sometimes laws thatare in place that prohibit
anybody from the employer'splace from contacting people
when they're on vacation, andthat can sometimes cause some
stress, of course, if you thinkthat person's got information
that is needed.
(14:13):
But there's another thing isthat that visibility that we see
in the US, where people cankind of silo their information
and they can keep it tothemselves, in Europe may not
exist so much.
There is more of an open,shared environment where people
are willing to kind of becausefor their own well-being they
don't want to be called onvacation, right, they?
(14:35):
They don't want to be calledand checked in on on vacation,
they want to be able to justgive fellow workers the stuff
and and and be off on theirbeach and, uh, and sit there and
drink their cocktails unimpeded.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
And I find that interesting because we work with
global professionals, brett andI, and when I contact people
via email, the out-of-officeresponders I get often tell me
one, which country they're fromand two, the home country
nationality of their employer.
(15:10):
So if they work for aEurope-based company, they're
out of office.
Autoresponder emails oftenclearly state that the email is
not going to be forwarded intothat individual's inbox until
that very date.
And if you have an urgentrequest before that, here are
(15:31):
three different names, phonenumbers, emails that you can
contact.
So that is a very moredistributed knowledge base or
contact base.
And then I get autoresponderssaying well, I'm out of the eye
the individual, I'm out of theoffice.
In urgent cases, call my cellphone.
I'm out of the office.
In urgent cases, call my cellphone.
So that still leaves the backdoor open for being contacted,
(15:54):
even though I dedicated time offfor myself.
And what you said earlier, thereare sacrosanct times for some
cultures, especially inMediterranean cultures, how
certain days of the calendar, ormaybe certain weeks, you really
don't get anyone on the phone.
(16:16):
Now Nobody answers an email.
And in Italy it's the famousFerragosto, which is around the
middle of the month of August,where every Italian is
apparently out of the office.
I've seen a talk show justrecently a talk show recording
with an Italian participant andhe was joking about this.
(16:39):
Yeah, on August the 15th, ifyou fall sick and you have to go
to the hospital, you might aswell die because nobody's
working at the hospital.
Of course it was anexaggeration, but for some
cultures time off is a humanright.
(16:59):
It is an essential right, it'snon-negotiable, Whereas in other
cultures that is a more fluidconcept that can be renegotiated
depending on the seniority ofyour job or your relationship
with your employer.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, absolutely Well , I certainly like my breaks
there's no doubt about that, andI take a lot of them.
But again, I tend to work on mybreaks.
I don't know, I have a veryblurred line between my uh work
and and free time, um, but thatis the privilege of course.
We've got to recognize thatsometimes, if you get to do what
(17:38):
you love, um, and love what youdo, you get the privilege of
doing it uh, mobile.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
So that's no, it also .
It also factors in that uh, areyou employed?
Are you in?
Are you in a salariedemployment position, or are you
in an hourly job, in a 1099contractor situation?
Or, like Brett and myself, areyou self-employed, do you run
(18:04):
your own business?
And that may very wellinfluence how much unplugging
you allow yourself during yourbreaks.
What I found interesting,looking at the statistic that I
mentioned earlier, is howdifferent cultures around the
world seem to have different PTOstrategies.
Right, and especially in Asia,it seems that cultures that may
(18:30):
not have, or countries wherethey may not have, a lot of
vacation days paid vacation isavailable they are very
strategic in using thosevacation days around national
holidays and weekends to combinethem into more short trips or
short periods of time offthroughout the calendar year,
(18:51):
instead of taking a three-weekcruise, right, so they they take
shorter breaks, which may ormay not be the the key to their
perfect uh recharging, who knows?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
well, although you would, maybe it's got something
to do with the again.
The cultural thing is that whenI'm speaking to Japanese people
or Chinese people, even thoughthey're short of breaks, they
tend to kind of switch off veryquickly.
This ability to get verycentered and go, I can remove
myself from that mindset ofworking very quickly so I can
(19:30):
kind of rest my brain and mybody and connect with my
spiritual side.
If that drives you and perhapsthere is a bit of a resistance
or an inability to do it in aculture like the US where you
tend to be, you know, maybe thatkind of worry am I being missed
?
Am I not being missed, which iseven worse, and so there is
(19:53):
that kind of buffer that islonger, that To really rest.
They don't really have theaccess to that kind of period of
rest because they're not takinglong vacations here, but they
might think that they're takinglonger vacations a week or two
weeks, but it's still a few daysfor your mind to switch off.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It does and I think some of it also is, and that's a
cultural factor is how do weview our production time, no
matter what you do for work,right?
How are you productive,creating value, and how are you
(20:37):
enjoying your life?
The often quoted work-lifebalance right?
I'm not a huge fan of thatterminology because I think it
can't be descriptive.
Everybody needs to find theirown balance and see what works
for them.
But I think in differentcultures there is the self-image
(20:59):
and the self-worth that peoplefeel is more determined on their
job, and in other cultures it'smore determined on other
factors.
Here in North America, canadaand the US, work very often is
one of the determining factorsof who I am, not only in the
(21:19):
public eye, in my socialenvironment, but also for myself
.
How important or how good do Ifeel about myself?
For North Americans is oftenconnected to how well am I
performing in a professionalsense.
If you talk to people fromBrazil or from Greece, they will
(21:42):
give you a different answer.
They will tell you that, yes,work is part of that, and also
my personal relationships, myfamily, my constant growth
outside of work, whether it betravel for relaxation or travel
for learning new things, ortravel for learning new things,
(22:06):
meeting new cultures, eatingdifferent foods and exploring
history, architecture, societiesof different places.
That is also part of who I am.
The memories that I collectduring my lifetime make me the
person that I am.
So self-image and identity aredifferent in different cultures,
and I think that also playsinto how do we, how important do
we, make personal time off, andthat reflects in how much time
(22:31):
people spend on vacations.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
That brings in the word of ascription.
We use this in our work to sayhow do different cultures
identify individually?
And I often use this phrasewhen I'm working with
professionals that are going offon their first international
assignment and I'd say welcometo the club and they kind of not
want to know what club that is.
And I say well, the club ofexpatriatism, it is a club.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
It's the expat.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Right and it's not an exclusive club.
Plenty of people get to do it,you know, and and obviously
we're working with people thatare doing it by choice.
There's obviously a great dealof the population in the world
that are moved involuntary,involuntarily, uh, through
conflict or other happenings,but in their case we're talking
about people like this, and Iuse that term and then I'm kind
(23:29):
of bringing in that conversationabout now.
You identify with a certaingroup of people that perhaps are
now exploring the world andit's got less to do with your
job.
You might find your job becomesless important to you now that
you open your eyes and you'llbroaden your horizons in the
excitement and the possibilitiesof connecting with different
(23:51):
cultures.
And it sounds a bit woo-woo, it, you know, gets into the realm
of, but I truly believe itmyself.
It's kind of like I wouldrather collect airline miles,
not for the sake of saying I'vegot a lot of airline miles, but
to say that I'm collecting thembecause I'm going and exploring
new horizons yeah, and whetheror not you fly to your
(24:12):
destination or you ride yourbike or you walk or you just
move yourself from the bed tothe couch or whether you drive
yourself.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Um, I I was reminded of this recently.
I read a headline in the Germannews because in Germany we have
different states or differentadministrative subdivisions of
the country that have differentvacation times, so they stagger
the school vacations from northto south so not that the whole
(24:42):
country has vacation at the sametime in an attempt to take the
pressure off the travelinfrastructure, road
infrastructure and yet we stillhave traffic jams around the
main holiday season.
And the headline was is itworth driving into the traffic
jam If it's only five hours?
Is it still worth going into it, or should you start on a
(25:04):
different day?
So just think about this theconcept of I know I'm going to
be stuck in a car not movingvery quickly on the highway for
five hours as the beginning ofmy vacation, and that has
normalized.
Apparently that is notsomething we even question.
It's like that's part of thetrip.
We need to do this.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
It's the cost of doing business.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Cost of doing vacation, I guess.
So I mean, I laugh about it.
And yet these are all theunwritten rules of PTO, and
those differ from country tocountry.
Right?
Brett just talked aboutcollecting miles on his airline
(25:49):
account.
Well, in other cultures, havinga miles account is an indicator
of travel.
Not well done, because we'repolluting the air with too much
co2.
Right, there is flight shamingin some cultures, so there is a
tendency to spend your time offdifferently.
(26:11):
I'm not going to be the judgeof that, because I have miles
account myself and I try tolimit my carbon footprint as
well.
But it's finding the balancethat works for you and that you
feel makes you a responsibletraveler.
And as we talk about this, I amreminded of this.
(26:35):
Maybe a quote that has maybebeen quoted too often, but the
great Mark Twain, a famousAmerican literary figure and I'm
probably butchering the quotenow said something like travel
is the best antidote toxenophobia and to ignorance and
(27:01):
to disrespecting other cultures.
So only only the, the travelerwill be able to see the world
through different eyes, becauseonly at home are you one of them
, once you go outside of yourown little bubble, or the if
(27:23):
you're a fish that is choosingto swim outside of your pond
into a different body of water.
That's when you learn the most,when you're confronted with
difference and when you arechallenged to use your brain a
little differently than whenyou're surrounded by everybody.
That is the same Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Difference, a lot of difference, beauty and
difference.
I find, anyway, that's just meand I try to be.
It's a good point, though I dotry to be relatively strategic
when I'm traveling, especiallywith clients.
I like to kind of group my nowbecause a lot of our clients
(28:06):
actually the companiesthemselves, and rightly so
wanting to kind of encouragetheir employees to be very
strategic about how they traveland their impact on the planet,
and that's rightly so.
I mean we're seeing it changebefore our eyes, so we want to
be partners in that.
Of course that's something thatwe if you're working with people
(28:28):
in companies like that, to kindof find out some of the
underlying things.
Yes, they do a particularfunction, they sell a particular
product, but there's somereally good initiatives in a lot
of the companies that we workwith and we try and match those
and it encourages us to kind ofbe very strategic.
It's a long way from spending10 hours in the back of the
(28:48):
station wagon in mom and dad'sstation wagon in Australia to
drive overnight to go and seegrandma and grandpa in another
state.
That's what we used to do whenwe were kids, no seatbelts.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Okay, so I'm going to be vulnerable here and I'm
going to divulge too muchpersonal information, but bear
with me.
This is how nerdy I am or canbe.
On a recent trip the one youasked me about, our last trip as
as a family, we drove.
We didn't fly, we drove, and wedrove quite a distance, and the
distance we had to cover to getthere was about 620 or 630
(29:27):
miles.
So for those of you who thinkin metrics, that's, I think,
more than a thousand kilometersalmost 1100 kilometers.
So my goal?
I knew that there I'm stillpolluting the air with my car,
but the car was full with people, so it was utilized to the max
(29:47):
and my goal was to get to thedestination on one tank of gas.
And I knew it was going to be astretch and I had to drive
economically and have a softfoot on the pedal.
And I managed to do it.
Wow, I do it.
Wow, I loved it.
So I knew I'm still not doingthe greenest thing to get to
(30:08):
that place where I was going,and yet I was managing my
carbon-related resources as bestas I could.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well done, all right.
Well, tell us what's your ideaof a right amount of vacation.
How do you define that, how doyou use your vacations and what
do you do to maybe reduce yourimpact on the planet while
you're vacationing, instead ofcollecting airline miles like us
(30:36):
?
Speaker 1 (30:36):
And what were the biggest learnings you had about
other cultures when you were aprod?
We would like to know.
Write it in the comments orsend us emails, or send us a
video response.
Whatever you want to do, we arecurious.
What makes a great vacation foryou and maybe what have you
learned in a different cultureand that you can apply at your
(31:00):
work in a way that makes youmore efficient and productive.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Absolutely.
Like and subscribe.
Hit that bell again and don'tforget our podcast.
You can take a vacation fromlooking at us and you can just
listen to us.
Maybe, if you're on a you'retrying to do that, one trip on
the tank of gas we can put ourdulcet tones into your ears
(31:26):
while you're doing that.
That'll make you slow down, ifnothing else.
So enough of us.
Thank you very much forlistening.
Good to see you again, mate,for another week.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Just thank you again for listening to the show, where
too much culture is barelyenough and we talk about the
business of culture and theculture of business.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
We will see you next time and I need a break from him
.
So, pto, bye, oh oh oh oh oh ohoh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ohoh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ohoh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh oh oh.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
So let's take it.
What about Jill?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Maybe it doesn't make Jill a dull boy.
It makes Jill a dull girl me.
So why don't we take a trip?
All right, should we go andrelax a little?
Maybe we should, and yet a lotof us don't feel like we're
getting enough time off, thatwe're really not kicking it back
(00:30):
enough, and it may havesomething to do with where we
actually work.
That may very much influencehow we take time off.
Let's take a closer look.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Welcome to 2Chap.
Many Cultures.
In an increasingly globallyconnected world, it is vital to
possess the essential skills ofcultural intelligence.
Listen along as we present thetopics, tips and strategies you
can use to develop the power ofcultural understanding in your
personal and professional life.
(01:02):
Here are your hosts Christian,huffala and Brett.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Parry, hello again and welcome back to Two Chaps,
many Cultures, the only show onthe planet where too much
culture is barely enough.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And where too much vacation is barely enough, if
you ask me.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
That's another point too.
Yes, welcome to the show wherewe talk about the business of
culture and the culture ofbusiness.
And today we are talking aboutvacations, where the origins of
where you live or where you workmight have something to do with
the amount of vacation you takeor don't take in this
particular case.
(01:42):
But before we get started, Iwill ask you that please
subscribe, hit that bell andlisten along, make sure that you
get informed on the nextepisode and be a part of the
conversation.
So, my friend, taking a goodbreak slightly.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I have taken a break.
It was good.
It was not great.
It was a good break.
Could have been a better breakand I'm not complaining.
It was a break.
And we're curious.
As you ring the bell, as yousubscribe to this channel and
stay part of the conversation,share with us in the comments to
this episode how often do yougo on vacation?
(02:23):
Do you do it once a year, twicea year, once a decade?
Do you take long breaks?
Do you take short breaks?
Do you take them as a solotraveler with, maybe a life
partner?
If you have young ones in thefamily, do you take them along
or do they go on separate trips?
(02:44):
What do you do with your pets,if you have pets?
All of these considerationsthat go into planning a vacation
or a trip doesn't necessarilyhave to be a vacation.
It could be time off spent withloved ones or friends at home
or near your home.
The concept that we're talkingabout is in the US.
(03:06):
They call it PTO personal timeoff.
Do you take time off and do youdo it enough?
Do you do enough, brett?
I do a lot.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, I guess it gets around.
We talk about vacation, but Iwant to always bring in the
conversation about vocation.
You know, do you have a career,do you have a vocation, do you
have something that you love?
I mean, I just think that doingthe work we do every day is a
work day for me, is a work dayfor me Not only if I'm talking
(03:46):
to clients directly, but couldbe that I'm just developing
information for clients.
In that sense, so we love thiswork.
So we understand not everybodyis like that and if you've got a
job which especially, maybeeven physical right, if you have
a physical job that putsdemands physically on your body
but also something that reallytaxes your brain, I would like
(04:09):
to think that what we do taxesour brain a little bit,
especially me.
But you know a lot of thinkingand a lot of work we need to
take a break from from variouspoints of view the point of view
of the physical well-being, thepsychological well-being and
something that you certainlytalk about.
There might be some of thatspiritual side of things, more
(04:31):
of the connectedness that weneed to feel with the people we
actually go to work and spendtime away from.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Well, while I understand that not everybody on
this planet has gainfulemployment that is fulfilling in
a spiritual way, that isactually a passion project that
they have created a meaning forthemselves around it, I do
recognize a lot of people have ajob because it pays the bills.
(04:58):
I don't know, was it KarlLagerfeld, the late German
fashion designer, who saidthings that you hate doing,
that's the job.
Things that you love doing,that is work in the sense of
meaningful work.
And there's other quotes aroundthat surrounding, like if you
love what you do, you'll neverwork a day in your life.
(05:21):
Well, I don't know how much ofthat is true.
Work a day in your life?
Well, I don't know how much ofthat is true.
I love what I do and still Ifeel once in a while that is in
fact, work and that it isdraining or exhausting to a
certain degree.
And I think, in physics,anything where we put
performance into, where we powerinto it needs recuperation,
(05:44):
energy needs to be restored.
There is, it's not.
You don't have an unlimitedamount.
That's why we have vacation,right?
that's why we have personal timeoff now we've come across some
statistics and, as we'rerecording this, of course this
is a timeless episode.
You can watch this any time ofthe year.
As we're recording this, it'sthe holiday season in the
(06:10):
northern part of our globe andthere's news articles about the
statistics being published abouthow much time do people
actually take off, and there wasone particular company who is
in the travel industry who hascreated something of a what they
call a vacation deprivationindex or similar.
(06:33):
I'm not quite sure about thelanguage, but it sounded like if
you're not taking enough, youfeel deprived of your vacation,
right, you're stripped from theprivilege of recuperation, and
in some countries, that feelingmight be stronger than in others
, because in some countries,people are not used to taking a
(06:56):
lot of time off, where in othereconomies, in other countries,
time off is baked into the workyear and is much more of a
habitual thing rather than achoice.
What is it like in your nativecountry?
How do people down under takevacations, and are they serious
(07:17):
about it, or is it more of a?
Well, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I think the hint can be found in the way that when
you're working with folks fromdifferent cultures, that they
show how much they want to beseen right, how much the
importance of visibility InAustralia.
I guess it may have changedmore recently, but I always
remember it not being as harddriving to be visible in the
(07:45):
workplace.
Yes, you wanted to be seen asvaluable, but not the need to be
seen as dispensable orindispensable, right?
So you don't want to kind ofput out the feeling that if I
don't go to work then somehowpeople are going to forget what
I do and diminish my value.
(08:07):
That is certainly, I hope, inthe business world in Australia
still prevalent and I think alot of people I work with that
go to Australia do.
When they arrive they see andagain it gets back to perception
they may come from a culturewhere visibility and appearance
and being seen all the time isimportant, like maybe perhaps
(08:30):
here in the US, and thereforethere's a reticence to take time
off because that makes you kindof disappear and out of sight,
out of mind comes into play,whereas in Australia, where we
enjoy the outdoors, we have thebenefit of enjoying the outdoors
to a greater degree and wereally like our time with our
(08:53):
families and things like thatand our workplace, the social
contract with the society also,because healthcare isn't really
tied to your job as much.
Those kind of support networksare not tied to the job.
Maybe there's a little bit of asubconscious feeling that I'm
(09:13):
going to really make sure that Itake my vacation and there's
also a lot more vacation allowedin australia.
So, very quickly after beingemployed, and and on and on on
an ongoing basis, in a veryshort period of time you accrue
additional leave.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
How many work days or how many vacation days do you
get in Australia per year?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Well, I remember you know very quickly you got a full
month's paid vacation.
It was something that was justbaked in, like you said.
That's the thing that's bakedinto it.
And then pretty soon you know alot of jobs historically had
this after 10 years you got longservice leave which would tack
on another whole month at a time.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And then more, and it was a reward for the commitment
and the loyalty to the companythat they said let's throw you
some more paid vacation and offyou go right.
And there wasn't thatimportance that you had to be
there.
There seemed to be more of asupport network.
Of course, it was differentwhen I came to the US as a
business person.
(10:14):
I found people where even youcould offer them all of that
vacation but there was no waythey were going to take it for
getting very few paid vacationdays or days off.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And there's other ways to take time off in the US
workplace maybe unpaid, orsometimes people take what's
called sick days in order torecharge their batteries.
But not all of these days arefully paid.
And, as you mentioned earlier,in US US culture, it is a little
(10:52):
bit more important for a lot ofpeople at the workplace to be
seen, to be recognized, not inthe sense of being seen as a
star contributor or asindispensable, but being
recognized as present and anactive contributor to the team.
And if you're not there, thenpeople might think hey, Jim or
(11:16):
Jack or Jill are not here todayand work is still getting done.
Do we really need Jack on thepayroll?
What can we do without Jack?
Because he was gone for threedays.
So that is an insidious fear.
To be be honest, that is veryoften that plays into those
decisions.
I think another factor might beoverall economics of travel.
(11:39):
Right.
In some markets your averagepay may not allow you to travel
the world as much, because thecurrency that you're paid in may
not make it easy for you to goto destinations that are very
sought after.
So that might play into it.
(12:01):
And for me as a European, Ialways found that what makes it
really hard for working familiesin the United States is how the
school system is structuredaround the calendar year,
Whereas in Europe a lot ofcountries the school year is
broken up into multiple pieces,with short vacation breaks, like
(12:24):
a week or maybe two weeks, forthe children or students, and
then there's longer breaks inthe summer.
There's even a break in thewinter around certain holidays,
and in the US the bulk of thevacation time for students is
the 10 to 12 weeks in the summer.
So if that happens for moststates in the United States at
(12:46):
around the same time of year,you can't just send 100 million
working Americans on vacation atthe same time.
That simply doesn't work.
So all of these are social andeconomic and also cultural
factors that play into thatdecision making, right yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
that's a good reminder too, because the school
year in Australia is muchlonger.
The main summer break reallyonly lasts about six weeks.
It's not a long break incomparison, but there is more
opportunity during the year, soduring even the winter months
there's opportunities.
So employers can share, oremployees can share, the load of
(13:31):
taking vacations and thingslike that, yeah for sure.
So I I just think as a, as amanager, um, going to a new
culture, if you are, one of thethings you really have to kind
of do research in is what is theattitude around vacations?
And of course, as you mentioned, in some European countries
taking time off is sacrosanct.
(13:52):
There is sometimes laws thatare in place that prohibit
anybody from the employer'splace from contacting people
when they're on vacation, andthat can sometimes cause some
stress, of course, if you thinkthat person's got information
that is needed.
(14:13):
But there's another thing isthat that visibility that we see
in the US, where people cankind of silo their information
and they can keep it tothemselves, in Europe may not
exist so much.
There is more of an open,shared environment where people
are willing to kind of becausefor their own well-being they
don't want to be called onvacation, right, they?
(14:35):
They don't want to be calledand checked in on on vacation,
they want to be able to justgive fellow workers the stuff
and and and be off on theirbeach and, uh, and sit there and
drink their cocktails unimpeded.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
And I find that interesting because we work with
global professionals, brett andI, and when I contact people
via email, the out-of-officeresponders I get often tell me
one, which country they're fromand two, the home country
nationality of their employer.
(15:10):
So if they work for aEurope-based company, they're
out of office.
Autoresponder emails oftenclearly state that the email is
not going to be forwarded intothat individual's inbox until
that very date.
And if you have an urgentrequest before that, here are
(15:31):
three different names, phonenumbers, emails that you can
contact.
So that is a very moredistributed knowledge base or
contact base.
And then I get autoresponderssaying well, I'm out of the eye
the individual, I'm out of theoffice.
In urgent cases, call my cellphone.
I'm out of the office.
In urgent cases, call my cellphone.
So that still leaves the backdoor open for being contacted,
(15:54):
even though I dedicated time offfor myself.
And what you said earlier, thereare sacrosanct times for some
cultures, especially inMediterranean cultures, how
certain days of the calendar, ormaybe certain weeks, you really
don't get anyone on the phone.
(16:16):
Now Nobody answers an email.
And in Italy it's the famousFerragosto, which is around the
middle of the month of August,where every Italian is
apparently out of the office.
I've seen a talk show justrecently a talk show recording
with an Italian participant andhe was joking about this.
(16:39):
Yeah, on August the 15th, ifyou fall sick and you have to go
to the hospital, you might aswell die because nobody's
working at the hospital.
Of course it was anexaggeration, but for some
cultures time off is a humanright.
(16:59):
It is an essential right, it'snon-negotiable, Whereas in other
cultures that is a more fluidconcept that can be renegotiated
depending on the seniority ofyour job or your relationship
with your employer.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, absolutely Well , I certainly like my breaks
there's no doubt about that, andI take a lot of them.
But again, I tend to work on mybreaks.
I don't know, I have a veryblurred line between my uh work
and and free time, um, but thatis the privilege of course.
We've got to recognize thatsometimes, if you get to do what
(17:38):
you love, um, and love what youdo, you get the privilege of
doing it uh, mobile.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
So that's no, it also .
It also factors in that uh, areyou employed?
Are you in?
Are you in a salariedemployment position, or are you
in an hourly job, in a 1099contractor situation?
Or, like Brett and myself, areyou self-employed, do you run
(18:04):
your own business?
And that may very wellinfluence how much unplugging
you allow yourself during yourbreaks.
What I found interesting,looking at the statistic that I
mentioned earlier, is howdifferent cultures around the
world seem to have different PTOstrategies.
Right, and especially in Asia,it seems that cultures that may
(18:30):
not have, or countries wherethey may not have, a lot of
vacation days paid vacation isavailable they are very
strategic in using thosevacation days around national
holidays and weekends to combinethem into more short trips or
short periods of time offthroughout the calendar year,
(18:51):
instead of taking a three-weekcruise, right, so they they take
shorter breaks, which may ormay not be the the key to their
perfect uh recharging, who knows?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
well, although you would, maybe it's got something
to do with the again.
The cultural thing is that whenI'm speaking to Japanese people
or Chinese people, even thoughthey're short of breaks, they
tend to kind of switch off veryquickly.
This ability to get verycentered and go, I can remove
myself from that mindset ofworking very quickly so I can
(19:30):
kind of rest my brain and mybody and connect with my
spiritual side.
If that drives you and perhapsthere is a bit of a resistance
or an inability to do it in aculture like the US where you
tend to be, you know, maybe thatkind of worry am I being missed
?
Am I not being missed, which iseven worse, and so there is
(19:53):
that kind of buffer that islonger, that To really rest.
They don't really have theaccess to that kind of period of
rest because they're not takinglong vacations here, but they
might think that they're takinglonger vacations a week or two
weeks, but it's still a few daysfor your mind to switch off.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It does and I think some of it also is, and that's a
cultural factor is how do weview our production time, no
matter what you do for work,right?
How are you productive,creating value, and how are you
(20:37):
enjoying your life?
The often quoted work-lifebalance right?
I'm not a huge fan of thatterminology because I think it
can't be descriptive.
Everybody needs to find theirown balance and see what works
for them.
But I think in differentcultures there is the self-image
(20:59):
and the self-worth that peoplefeel is more determined on their
job, and in other cultures it'smore determined on other
factors.
Here in North America, canadaand the US, work very often is
one of the determining factorsof who I am, not only in the
(21:19):
public eye, in my socialenvironment, but also for myself
.
How important or how good do Ifeel about myself?
For North Americans is oftenconnected to how well am I
performing in a professionalsense.
If you talk to people fromBrazil or from Greece, they will
(21:42):
give you a different answer.
They will tell you that, yes,work is part of that, and also
my personal relationships, myfamily, my constant growth
outside of work, whether it betravel for relaxation or travel
for learning new things, ortravel for learning new things,
(22:06):
meeting new cultures, eatingdifferent foods and exploring
history, architecture, societiesof different places.
That is also part of who I am.
The memories that I collectduring my lifetime make me the
person that I am.
So self-image and identity aredifferent in different cultures,
and I think that also playsinto how do we, how important do
we, make personal time off, andthat reflects in how much time
(22:31):
people spend on vacations.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
That brings in the word of ascription.
We use this in our work to sayhow do different cultures
identify individually?
And I often use this phrasewhen I'm working with
professionals that are going offon their first international
assignment and I'd say welcometo the club and they kind of not
want to know what club that is.
And I say well, the club ofexpatriatism, it is a club.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
It's the expat.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Right and it's not an exclusive club.
Plenty of people get to do it,you know, and and obviously
we're working with people thatare doing it by choice.
There's obviously a great dealof the population in the world
that are moved involuntary,involuntarily, uh, through
conflict or other happenings,but in their case we're talking
about people like this, and Iuse that term and then I'm kind
(23:29):
of bringing in that conversationabout now.
You identify with a certaingroup of people that perhaps are
now exploring the world andit's got less to do with your
job.
You might find your job becomesless important to you now that
you open your eyes and you'llbroaden your horizons in the
excitement and the possibilitiesof connecting with different
(23:51):
cultures.
And it sounds a bit woo-woo, it, you know, gets into the realm
of, but I truly believe itmyself.
It's kind of like I wouldrather collect airline miles,
not for the sake of saying I'vegot a lot of airline miles, but
to say that I'm collecting thembecause I'm going and exploring
new horizons yeah, and whetheror not you fly to your
(24:12):
destination or you ride yourbike or you walk or you just
move yourself from the bed tothe couch or whether you drive
yourself.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Um, I I was reminded of this recently.
I read a headline in the Germannews because in Germany we have
different states or differentadministrative subdivisions of
the country that have differentvacation times, so they stagger
the school vacations from northto south so not that the whole
(24:42):
country has vacation at the sametime in an attempt to take the
pressure off the travelinfrastructure, road
infrastructure and yet we stillhave traffic jams around the
main holiday season.
And the headline was is itworth driving into the traffic
jam If it's only five hours?
Is it still worth going into it, or should you start on a
(25:04):
different day?
So just think about this theconcept of I know I'm going to
be stuck in a car not movingvery quickly on the highway for
five hours as the beginning ofmy vacation, and that has
normalized.
Apparently that is notsomething we even question.
It's like that's part of thetrip.
We need to do this.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
It's the cost of doing business.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Cost of doing vacation, I guess.
So I mean, I laugh about it.
And yet these are all theunwritten rules of PTO, and
those differ from country tocountry.
Right?
Brett just talked aboutcollecting miles on his airline
(25:49):
account.
Well, in other cultures, havinga miles account is an indicator
of travel.
Not well done, because we'repolluting the air with too much
co2.
Right, there is flight shamingin some cultures, so there is a
tendency to spend your time offdifferently.
(26:11):
I'm not going to be the judgeof that, because I have miles
account myself and I try tolimit my carbon footprint as
well.
But it's finding the balancethat works for you and that you
feel makes you a responsibletraveler.
And as we talk about this, I amreminded of this.
(26:35):
Maybe a quote that has maybebeen quoted too often, but the
great Mark Twain, a famousAmerican literary figure and I'm
probably butchering the quotenow said something like travel
is the best antidote toxenophobia and to ignorance and
(27:01):
to disrespecting other cultures.
So only only the, the travelerwill be able to see the world
through different eyes, becauseonly at home are you one of them
, once you go outside of yourown little bubble, or the if
(27:23):
you're a fish that is choosingto swim outside of your pond
into a different body of water.
That's when you learn the most,when you're confronted with
difference and when you arechallenged to use your brain a
little differently than whenyou're surrounded by everybody.
That is the same Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Difference, a lot of difference, beauty and
difference.
I find, anyway, that's just meand I try to be.
It's a good point, though I dotry to be relatively strategic
when I'm traveling, especiallywith clients.
I like to kind of group my nowbecause a lot of our clients
(28:06):
actually the companiesthemselves, and rightly so
wanting to kind of encouragetheir employees to be very
strategic about how they traveland their impact on the planet,
and that's rightly so.
I mean we're seeing it changebefore our eyes, so we want to
be partners in that.
Of course that's something thatwe if you're working with people
(28:28):
in companies like that, to kindof find out some of the
underlying things.
Yes, they do a particularfunction, they sell a particular
product, but there's somereally good initiatives in a lot
of the companies that we workwith and we try and match those
and it encourages us to kind ofbe very strategic.
It's a long way from spending10 hours in the back of the
(28:48):
station wagon in mom and dad'sstation wagon in Australia to
drive overnight to go and seegrandma and grandpa in another
state.
That's what we used to do whenwe were kids, no seatbelts.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Okay, so I'm going to be vulnerable here and I'm
going to divulge too muchpersonal information, but bear
with me.
This is how nerdy I am or canbe.
On a recent trip the one youasked me about, our last trip as
as a family, we drove.
We didn't fly, we drove, and wedrove quite a distance, and the
distance we had to cover to getthere was about 620 or 630
(29:27):
miles.
So for those of you who thinkin metrics, that's, I think,
more than a thousand kilometersalmost 1100 kilometers.
So my goal?
I knew that there I'm stillpolluting the air with my car,
but the car was full with people, so it was utilized to the max
(29:47):
and my goal was to get to thedestination on one tank of gas.
And I knew it was going to be astretch and I had to drive
economically and have a softfoot on the pedal.
And I managed to do it.
Wow, I do it.
Wow, I loved it.
So I knew I'm still not doingthe greenest thing to get to
(30:08):
that place where I was going,and yet I was managing my
carbon-related resources as bestas I could.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well done, all right.
Well, tell us what's your ideaof a right amount of vacation.
How do you define that, how doyou use your vacations and what
do you do to maybe reduce yourimpact on the planet while
you're vacationing, instead ofcollecting airline miles like us
(30:36):
?
Speaker 1 (30:36):
And what were the biggest learnings you had about
other cultures when you were aprod?
We would like to know.
Write it in the comments orsend us emails, or send us a
video response.
Whatever you want to do, we arecurious.
What makes a great vacation foryou and maybe what have you
learned in a different cultureand that you can apply at your
(31:00):
work in a way that makes youmore efficient and productive.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Absolutely.
Like and subscribe.
Hit that bell again and don'tforget our podcast.
You can take a vacation fromlooking at us and you can just
listen to us.
Maybe, if you're on a you'retrying to do that, one trip on
the tank of gas we can put ourdulcet tones into your ears
(31:26):
while you're doing that.
That'll make you slow down, ifnothing else.
So enough of us.
Thank you very much forlistening.
Good to see you again, mate,for another week.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Just thank you again for listening to the show, where
too much culture is barelyenough and we talk about the
business of culture and theculture of business.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
We will see you next time and I need a break from him
.
So, pto, bye, oh oh oh oh oh ohoh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ohoh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ohoh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh oh oh.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you wonโt hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, youโve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.